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AUTHOR: 


STURTEVANT,  E.  H. 


TITLE: 


COINCIDENCE  OF  AC 
CENT  AND  ICTUS  IN... 

PLACE* 

[NEW  YORK] 

DA  TE : 

[1919] 


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PC:s      PD:1919/  REP:?   CPI-'? 

HMD:      OR:     POL:  DM:      RR: 
040     NNC^:cNNC 

100  i   Sturtevant,  E.  H. 

245  14  The  coincidence  of  accent  and  ictus  in  the  Roman  dactylic  poetsi^hCmicr 
of  orrn  j . 

260  I  New  Yor  K,;:bColumbia  Universi  ty  ,{:cl919] . 

300  p.  6?Z-ZSb. 

LDQ  ORIO 

QO  02-13-92 


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Restrictions  on  Use: 


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DATE     FILMED:      3/a^^_ INITIALS 

HLMEDBY:    RESEARCH  PUBLICATIONS.  INC  WOODDRIDGE,  CT 


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301/587-8202 


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MRNUFfiCTURED   TO   fillM   STflNDflRDS 
BY   fiPPLIED   IMfiGE,     INC. 


E.  H.  Sturtevant 


374 


THE  COINCIDENCE  OF  ACCENT  AND  ICTUS  IN  THE 

ROMAN  DACTYLIC  POETS 

By  E.  H.  Sturtevant 

In  Classical  Philology,  XIV,  234-44, 1  have  applied  a  new  criterion 
to  the  old  problem  whether  the  prevaiUng  harmony  of  accent  and 
ictus  in  Plautus  and  Terence  was  accidental  or  intentional.  I 
determined  statistically  the  tendency  of  the  verse-structure  to 
produce  harmony  in  words  of  the  several  rhythmic  types,  and  with 
this  I  compared  the  actual  usage  of  the  poets.  The  comparison 
showed  that  there  was  an  effort  so  to  place  words  in  the  Ime  that 

harmony  would  result. 

There  is  a  similar  problem  as  to  the  Roman  dactylic  poets. 
It  is  clear  that  there  is  usually  harmony  of  accent  and  ictus  in  the 
last  two  feet  of  the  dactylic  hexameter  and  that  clash  of  accent  and 
ictus  is  more  common  than  harmony  in  the  first  four  feet,  but  scholars 
are  still  disagreed  as  to  whether  this  state  of  affairs  is  altogether  a 
result  of  the  Latin  system  of  accentuation  and  the  structure  of 
dactyUc  verse,  or  whether  the  poets  paid  attention  to  accent  in  con- 
structing their  lines.  In  case  we  accept  the  second  alternative  there 
is  the  further  problem  whether  their  efforts  were  devoted  solely  to 
the  securing  of  harmony  in  the  last  two  feet  of  the  line  or  whether 
they  desh-ed  clash  of  accent  and  ictus  in  the  first  four  feet. 

The  dactylic  poets  had  far  less  choice  in  the  matter  than  the 
dramatic  poets;  in  iambic  and  trochaic  verse  the  ictus  can  be  placed 
on  any  syllable  of  almost  any  word  {ferunt  or  ferunt,  nisdo  or  nescio), 
but  most  words  can  be  got  into  dactyUc  verse  with  just  one  incidence 
of  the  ictus  {ferunt,  rdscio).  In  fact  the  dactylic  poets  had  free 
choice  only  in  the  case  of  words  composed  wholly  of  long  syllables. 
For  the  rest  their  only  recourse  was  to  avoid  such  words  as  ferunt 
in  case  they  desired  harmony  of  accent  and  ictus,  and  to  choose 
them  in  case  they  wanted  accent  and  ictus  to  rest  upon  different 

1  For  a  brief  history  of  the  discussion  see  Lucian  MfiUer.  De  Re  Meiri^  ^'''r'Z 
Latinorum\  pp.  233-37.     MttUer  fails  to  mention  a  suggestive  paper  by  Humphreys 
in  Trans.  Am.  Phil.  Assoc,  IX,  39-58. 
[Classical  Philoloot  XIV,  October,  1919]    373 


syllables.  It  should  be  easy  to  determine  whether  they  did  as  a 
matter  of  fact  choose  words  which  require  harmony  in  preference 
to  those  which  require  clash,  or  whether  their  choice  varied  between 
the  different  parts  of  the  verse. 

To  secure  a  standard  of  comparison  I  have  counted  the  words 
of  the  several  rhythmic  types  containing  two,  three,  four,  or  five 
syllables  in  several  prose  passages,  namely,  Caesar  B.G.  i.  7,  Cicero 
Cat,  i.  1-7,  Manil  47-49,  Cluent.  51,  Caelius  ap.  Cic.  Fam,  viii.  1, 
Livy  xxi.  23,  35.     I  have  similarly  recorded  the  rhythmic  character 
of  from  2300  to  2500  words  of  each  of  four  dactylic  poets,  Ennius, 
Catullus,  Lucretius,  and  Vergil.     Tables  I,  II,  III,  and  IV  give  the 
detailed  results  in  the  form  of  percentages.     Here  and  throughout 
this  paper  words  are  reckoned  with  that  part  of  the  verse  in  which 
their  accented  syllable  falls,  except  that  a  dissyllable  whose  ultima 
receives  the  fifth  ictus  is  counted  as  belonging  to  the  fifth  foot. 
Words  with  the  rhythm  w  ^  and  with  the  rhythms  w  -  and  ^  ^  s 
with  elision  of  the  ultima  are  all  included  under  the  heading  "Require 
clash  of  accent  and  ictus,'^  although  no  ictus  at  all  rests  upon  them. 
To  have  taken  into  account  this  variation  within  the  types  -  « 
and  w  ^  s  would  have  made  the  tables  too  complicated  for  con- 
venience, and  so  I  have  preferred  to  make  the  necessary  correction 
below  (p.  379)  in  the  supplementary  discussion.     The  desire  to  keep 
the  tables  reasonably  simple  has  also  led  me  to  include  trochaic 
words  with  the  spondees  as  permitting  either  clash  or  harmony. 
Trochaic  words  ending  in  a  consonant  had  to  be  included  because 
they  are  spondaic  when  an  initial  consonant  follows,  and  it  seemed 
unsatisfactory  to  separate  forma  and  mitte  from  formam  and  mittit, 
I  assume  that  such  a  word  as  armaque  was  regularly  accented  on  the 
antepenult.^ 

For  convenience  of  comparison  the  figures  in  the  several  blocks 
have  been  added  together,  and  they  are  presented  in  compact  form 
in  Table  IV.  The  percentage  of  monosyllables  has  been  appended; 
but  even  so  the  figures  in  each  line  of  the  table  aggregate  only  99  or 
a  little  more.  The  remainder  is  accounted  for  by  the  words  of  more 
than  five  syllables  and  by  the  decimals  beyond  the  fourth  place 
which  have  been  neglected  in  computation. 

»  See  Shipley,  Class.  Phil.,  VIII.  23  flf. 


375         Accent  and  Ictus  in  Roman  Dactylic  Poets 


E.  H.  Sturtevant 


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Catullus  . 
Lucretius. 
Vergil.. . . 


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Ennius. . . 

Catullus  . 

Lucretius. 

^Vergil.. . . 


fEnnius. . . 


Vergil. 


25.44 

19.12 
14.06 
19.71 
19.01 

23.27 
20.83 
25.09 
25.21 

10.49 
1.6 
8.73 
5.09 


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27.87 

41.6 
45.92 
37.33 
41.67 

42.02 
45.05 
34.66 
39.46 

40.74 
47.9 
42.79 
46.54 


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18.24 
16.64 
21 
19.3 

24.11 
24.38 
30 
28.06 

6.24 

.41 

2.67 

.77 


gig 


18.29 

20.64 
22.16 
20.9 
19.49 

10.24 
9.68 
9.3 
6.66 

41.83 
49.36 
44.68 
46.54 


The  avoidance  of  monosyllables  in  the  last  two  feet  of  the  hex- 
ameter by  Ennius'  successors  has  long  been  a  commonplace;  our 
table  shows  that  Ennius  himself  used  in  these  feet  only  about  29  per 
cent  as  many  monosyllables  as  might  have  been  expected  (10.49 
instead  of  25.44  per  cent).  An  examination  of  the  hexameter 
cadences  listed  by  Humphreys,  op.  cit,  p.  43,  shows  that  the  use  of 
monosyllables  tends  to  produce  clash  of  accent  and  ictus,  at  least 
in  this  part  of  the  verse;  it  is  very  hkely  indeed  that  the  reason  why 
the  later  poets  avoided  such  line-ends  as  Ennius'  Diana  Venus  Mars, 
cum  nmgnis  dis,  and  ristituit  rem  was  their  desire  not  to  do  violence  to 
the  accent.  But  that  some  other  influence  was  at  work  is  indicated 
by  the  small  number  of  monosyllables  in  the  earher  part  of  the  Une. 
Since,  as  we  shall  see,  other  rhythmic  types  which  are  avoided  in 
the  last  two  feet  are  as  a  rule  considerably  more  common  in  the 
first  four  feet  than  in  prose,  we  should  expect  to  find  the  percentage 
of  monosyllables  in  the  first  four  feet  higher  than  the  25.44  per 
cent  which  represents  prose  usage.  On  the  contrary  all  the  poets 
examined  show  a  lower  percentage  than  this,  and  the  lowest  of  all 
appears  in  Catullus,  who  most  rigidly  avoids  monosyllables  in  the 


379 


Accent  and  Ictus  in  Roman  Dactylic  Poets 


E.  H.  Sturtevant 


380 


fifth  and  sixth  feet.  What  this  further  motive  was  which  led  to  the 
avoidance  of  monosyllables  I  am  not  now  prepared  to  say;  and  it 
would  be  unsafe  to  base  an  argument  upon  the  statistics  in  the  second 
column  of  Table  IV  until  that  factor  has  been  identified. 

The  third  column  of  Table  IV  shows  that  polysyllables  whose 
penult  and  all  preceding  syllables  are  long  were  greatly  favored  by 
the  dactylic  poets,  and  that  after  Ennius  they  were  particularly 
favored  in  the  last  two  feet.     As  already  noted,  these  are  the  words 
which  admit  either  harmony  or  clash  of  accent  and  ictus.     It  is 
therefore  likely  that  poets  sometimes  preferred,  let  us  say,  portant 
to  ferunt  in  order  to  avoid  the  clash  which  the  latter  word  would 
involve.    Nevertheless  there  was  another  motive  which  led  to  the 
use  of  these  words;  they  would  fit  into  any  position  in  the  line,  save 
only  the  second  half  of  the  fifth  foot,  provided  they  had  the  number 
of  syllables  required.     The  use  of  words  composed  of  long  syllables 
faciUtated  composition  whatever  attitude  the  poets  took  toward 
accent,  and  therefore  we  cannot  base  an  argument  upon  the  great 
frequency  with  which  such  words  occur.     We  shall  presently  have 
to  consider  the  actual  incidence  of  the  ictus  upon  them. 

The  fourth  column  shows  that  in  the  last  two  feet  of  the  hne 
the  poets  avoided  the  use  of  polysyllables  which  require  clash  of 
accent  and  ictus.  As  noted  above  (p.  374)  our  figures  require  a  cor- 
rection at  this  point;  a  large  proportion  of  the  words  of  the  types  ^  ^ 
and  ^  ^  X  employed  in  the  last  two  feet  carry  no  ictus,  and  con- 
sequently involve  no  real  clash  at  all;  for  example,  isque  pium  Sx  se, 
te  neque  posse,  aui  etiam  ipse  haec.  Consequently  the  avoidance  of 
.  i  and  w  ^  ^  is  even  more  rigid  than  the  tables  indicate;  the  dactylic 
poets,  especially  after  Ennius,  generally  avoided  placing  in  the  last 
two  feet  words  whose  rhythm  required  clash  of  accent  and  ictus. 

The  fifth  column  of  Table  IV  shows  that  the  poets  correspondingly 
favored  words  requiring  harmony  of  accent  and  ictus  in  the  last  two 
feet  of  the  hexameter.  The  difference  between  the  18  per  cent  of 
such  words  employed  in  prose  and  the  42  to  49  per  cent  employed 
in  these  two  feet  is  even  greater  than  the  excess  just  observed  in  the 
poets^  use  of  words  composed  of  long  syllables.  Here  again  the 
tendency  is  clearly  marked  in  Ennius'  usage  and  is  carried  farther 
by  his  successors. 


If  a  word  of  a  particular  rhythm  was  to  be  avoided  in  the  last 
part  of  the  line  the  poet  might  either  use  a  synonym  of  different 
rhythm  or  recast  his  sentence  so  as  to  place  the  objectionable  word 
earlier  in  the  line.  Our  tables  indicate  that  both  methods  were 
employed.  For,  while  the  third  block  of  Table  IV,  which  represents 
the  usage  in  the  first  four  feet  of  the  line,  shows  much  larger  figures 
in  the  fourth  column  than  in  the  fifth,  the  difference  is  not  nearly 
so  great  as  in  the  fourth  block,  which  represents  the  usage  in  the 
last  two  feet.  Consequently  in  hexameter  verse  as  a  whole  the  words 
which  require  clash  are  a  little  less  common  and  those  which  require 
harmony  are  a  little  more  common  than  they  are  in  prose. 

It  remains  to  determine  whether  or  not  the  dactylic  poets  tried 
to  place  the  ictus  on  the  penult  of  words  whose  penult  and  all  pre- 
ceding syllables  are  long,  that  is,  of  those  words  which  alone  permit 
either  clash  or  harmony  of  accent  and  ictus.  Our  standard  of  com- 
parison here  must  be  the  tendency  of  hexameter  verse  to  place  the 
ictus  on  the  penult  rather  than  the  antepenult  of  such  words.  To 
determine  this  tendency  statistically  I  have  "scanned''  200  or  more 
verses  of  each  of  four  dactyUc  poets,  as  follows: 

Aen.  i.  1' ' ^ 


Then  I  have  picked  out  all  possible  combinations  of  a  long  syllable 
and  a  following  syllable  of  either  quantity,  and  have  recorded  the 
incidence  of  the  ictus.  In  the  above  line  syllable-groups  with  the 
rhythm  -  ^  occur  with  ictus  on  the  penult  six  times  and  with  ictus 
on  the  ultima  twice.  In  320  lines  of  the  Aeneid  they  occur  with 
ictus  on  the  penult  1920  times  and  with  ictus  on  the  ultima  233 
times;  that  is,  the  ictus  falls  on  the  penult  in  73  per  cent  of  the  occur- 
rences; the  structure  of  Vergil's  hexameter  tends  to  put  the  ictus 
on  the  penult  of  syllable-groups  (or  of  words)  with  the  rhythm  -  ^ 
73  per  cent  of  the  time. 

For  the  second  term  of  the  comparison  I  have  counted  the 
incidence  of  the  ictus  upon  words  whose  rhythm  is  -  s  in  about 
400  lines  each  of  the  same  dactylic  poets.  In  this  computation  I 
have  ignored  the  words  with  elided  ultima  which  carry  no  ictus. 
In  the  first  400  lines  of  the  Aeneid  words  of  the  type  -  a  have  the 
ictus  on  the  ultima  258  times  and  on  the  penult  466  times  or  64  per 


381         Accent  and  Ictus  in  Roman  Dactylic  Poets 

cent  of  all  occurrences.  While  the  structure  of  the  verse  tended  to 
place  the  ictus  on  the  penult  of  these  words  73  per  cent  of  the  time, 
Vergil  allowed  it  to  stand  there  only  64  per  cent  of  the  time. 

Our  problem,  however,  is  chiefly  a  matter  of  the  last  two  feet. 
I  have  therefore  divided  the  line  as  above  (see  p.  374) ;  each  word  has 
been  assigned  to  that  part  of  the  verse  in  which  its  accented  syllable 
stands,  except  that  a  dissyllable  upon  whose  ultima  the  fifth  ictus 
rests  has  been  reckoned  as  belonging  to  the  last  part  of  the  verse. 
Counting  syllable-groups  and  words  as  before,  I  find  that  the  struc- 
ture of  the  fifth  and  sixth  feet  tends  to  place  the  ictus  on  the  penult 
of  words  of  the  rhythm  -  «  73  per  cent  of  the  time,  and  that  Vergil 
actually  placed  it  there  100  per  cent  of  the  time.  A  similar  calcula- 
tion for  the  first  four  feet  indicates  a  tendency  for  the  ictus  to  rest 
upon  the  penult  73  per  cent  of  the  time,  whereas  Vergil  actually 
placed  it  there  only  39  per  cent  of  the  time. 

Table  V  gives  the  results  of  similar  calculations  for  words  of 

the  three  types  -  x ,  -  -  * , x ,  and  for  the  four  poets,  Ennius, 

Catullus,  Lucretius,  and  Vergil.  At  the  head  of  each  block  is  an 
indication  of  the  rhythmic  group  to  be  treated.  The  Roman  numerals 
indicate  the  incidence  of  the  ictus;  I  stands  for  the  ultima,  II  for 
the  penult,  and  III  for  the  antepenult.  In  case  a  word  has  ictus  on 
two  syllables,  only  the  ictus  on  penult  or  antepenult  is  recorded  in 
our  count.  In  each  block  the  column  which  corresponds  to  the 
accent  is  printed  in  heavy-faced  type.  The  third,  sixth,  ninth,  and 
twelfth  number  in  each  heavy-faced  column  is  the  difference  between 
the  unhampered  tendency  of  the  verse-structure  and  the  poet's 

actual  usage. 

The  table  shows  that  the  dactylic  poets  tried  to  put  the  ictus 
on  the  penult  of  spondaic  words  in  the  last  two  feet  of  the  verse,  and 
that  the  tendency  became  stronger  after  Ennius.  There  was  even 
greater  regularity  in  placing  the  ictus  on  the  penult  of  words  of  the 

rhythms  -  -  ^  and « ,  but  this  appears  to  be  chiefly  due  to 

the  structure  of  the  verse.    If,  however,  we  had  reckoned  to  the 

fifth  foot  syllable-groups  and  words  of  the  rhythms and 

whose  ultima  has  the  fifth  ictus  it  would  appear  that  the  poets  took 
great  pains  to  avoid  clash  of  accent  and  ictus  in  these  words.  Accord- 
ing to  Humphreys,  op.  cit,  p.  52,  the  fifth  ictus  rests   upon  the 


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E.  H.  Sturtevant 


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383 


Accent  and  Ictus  in  Roman  Dactylic  Poets 


E.  H.  Sturtevant 


384 


ultima^of  a  dissyllable  or  polysyllable  in  only  5.2  per  cent  of  Ennius' 
verses,  and  only  four-tenths  of  one  per  cent  of  the  time  in  Lucretius 
and  Vergil.  My  count  gives  1.73  per  cent  for  Catullus.  This 
increasing  avoidance  of  line-ends  such  as  ignis  mare  fSrrum,  mortaUs 
perhibShant,  amatorim  quod  amid,  Tuditand  colUga  must  have  been 
due  to  the  effort  to  make  accent  and  ictus  rest  upon  the  same 

syllable. 

Table  V  shows  further  a  very  striking  tendency  to  favor  ictus 
of  the  ultima  of  spondaic  words  in  the  first  four  feet.  This  tendency 
is  no  doubt  partly  due  to  the  restriction  of  words  of  the  rhythms 
.  X  and  ^  ^  *  to  this  part  of  the  verse;  for  a  spondaic  word  standmg 
next  to  one  of  them  must  ordinarily  have  the  ictus  on  the  ultima;  for 
example,  Tyrids  olim,  currus  fuit,  mihi  causds  memord.  But  words 
beginning  with  one  or  two  short  syllables  are  too  few  to  account  for 
so  great  an  excess  of  spondees  with  accented  ultima  as  we  actually 
find.  Besides  many  a  line  could  easily  be  shifted  so  as  to  put  the 
ictus  on  the  penult  instead  of  the  ultima  of  a  spondaic  word.  The 
following  lines  of  the  first  book  of  the  Aeneid  might  have  run: 

1    Arma  virumque  can6  qui  Tr6iae  primus  ab  6ris, 
50    Tdlia  s^cum  fldmmat6  dea  c6rde  voWtans 

instead  of  tdlia  fldmmato  secum, 

104    R^mi  frdngunttir;  turn  pr6ra  av^rtit  et  lindis 

instead  of  frdnguntur  remi, 

159    £st  locus  In  sec4ssul6ngo:  insula  p6rtum 

instead  of  ist  in  sicessu  longo  locus, 

167    Dtilces  intus  aqu^  viv6que  sedilia  s^xo 

instead  of  intus  aquae  dulces. 

Similar  easy  shifts  would  avoid  a  clash  of  accent  and  ictus  in 
a  spondaic  word  in  lines  8,  32,  35,  53,  64,  68,  69,  72.  There  may 
be  objections  to  these  specific  changes;  but  if  such  alterations  are 
so  easy,  Vergil  could  undoubtedly  have  found  many  which  were 
free  from  objection  if  he  had  desired.  It  seems  necessary  to  conclude 
that  the  dactyhc  poets  preferred  frequent  clash  of  accent  and  ictus 
in  the  first  four  feet,  at  least  in  the  case  of  spondaic  words. 


Some  will  criticize  my  discussion  of  the  first  four  feet  (particularly 
some  of  the  suggested  rearrangements  of  Vergilian  lines)  because  no 
account  has  been  taken  of  the  caesura.  I  have  two  lines  of  defense 
against  such  an  attack.  It  is  Ukely  that  the  position  and  character 
of  the  caesura  was  dependent  on  considerations  of  accent  (compare 
Lucian  Muller,  op.  cit.,  p.  200).  For  example,  the  Roman  prefer- 
ence for  the  masculine  caesura  was  probably  due  to  a  desire  for  con- 
flict between  accent  and  ictus  at  that  point  in  the  verse.  Even  if 
there  should  prove  to  have  been  some  other  cause  for  this  deviation 
from  Greek  usage,  that  other  cause,  not  the  position  of  the  caesura, 
would  have  to  be  taken  into  account  in  our  investigation. 

In  the  second  place,  if  I  had  taken  account  of  the  caesura  it 
would  not  materiaUy  have  changed  the  complexion  of  the  figures. 
The  alterations  would  have  been  confined  to  Table  VI,  and  there 
would  have  affected  only  the  first  six  columns.  I  have  made  the 
calculations  for  the  first  four  feet  in  Vergil,  with  these  results: 


— 

X 

^B     m 

m,     ^ 

—  s 

I 

u 

II 

III 

u 

ni 

Syllable-groups 
Words 

32 
61 

68 

89 

-29 

39 

46 

7 

61 
54 

42 
81 
31 

58 
19 

All  of  the  above  remarks  apply  to  these  figures  as  well  as  to  those 
given  in  Table  V. 

It  is  quite  clear,  then,  that  the  dactylic  poets  tried  to  secure 
harmony  of  accent  and  ictus  in  the  last  two  feet  of  the  verse;  and 
this  effort  was  stronger,  or  at  least  more  successful,  with  the  later 
poets  than  with  Ennius.  It  seems  likely  that  Ennius,  like  Plautus 
and  Terence,  would  have  preferred  harmony  of  accent  and  ictus 
throughout  the  verse;  but  since  that  was  impossible  in  the  hexam- 
eter he  gained  much  the  same  effect  by  preserving  fairly  regular 
harmony  in  the  last  two  feet.  Ennius  seems  thereupon  to  have  made 
a  virtue  of  necessity  and  to  have  employed  clash  of  accent  and  ictus 
m  the  first  four  feet  to  help  give  his  language  that  air  of  aloofness 
from  ordinary  speech  which  he  regarded  as  essential  to  heroic  verse. 


385 


Accent  and  Ictus  in  Roman  Dactylic  Poets 


The  later  dactylic  poets  seem  to  have  confined  this  device  to  spondaic 
words,  but  in  this  limited  field  they  employed  it  even  more  than 

Ennius  had  done.^ 

If  the  dactylic  poets  cared  to  secure  harmony  of  accent  and  ictus 
in  the  last  two  feet  of  the  line,  or  if  they  aimed  at  any  particular 
relation  of  accent  and  ictus  in  any  part  of  the  line,  it  follows  that 
both  accent  and  ictus  involved  stress.  The  Latin  accent,  in  classical 
times  as  well  as  in  the  early  period,  was  in  part  a  stress  accent. 

Columbia  University 

»  Possibly  the  reason  why  Latin  poets  could  employ  f amUiar  prosaic  phrases  was 
that  a  clash  between  accent  and  ictus  removed  them  from  their  commonplace  asso- 
ciations At  any  rate  VergU  has  such  a  clash  in  the  phrase  (Aen.  i.  207) :  rebUs  servdte 
secHndis,  and  Horace  in  (Carm.  i.  14.  2)0  quid  agUf  {Carm.  iii.  5.  42)  capitis  mindr,  etc. 


